QUENTIN TARANTINO'S western homage looks more like a case of a director unchained.

Following the critical and commercial failure of Death Proof and the fun but flawed Inglourious Basterds, here is a filmmaker returning to what he does best unleashing a brutal and wildly entertaining assault on our senses.

Ultra-violent, brimming with his trademark humour and with an achingly cool soundtrack, it’s the QT of old – bold, audacious and devil-may-care.

Truly, it is his most giddily entertaining film since Pulp Fiction hit our big screens in 1994.

Jamie Foxx plays the slave Django who is freed in a gunfight by a professional bounty hunter called Dr King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), who needs him to identify three brothers with prices on their heads.

And so begins an unlikely but lucrative partnership as the pair roam the States, crossing off the Wanted checklists in their pockets.

Django’s real goal, however, is to rescue his slave wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from a very sadistic plantation owner (played by Leonardo DiCaprio).

Despite the epic running time of 165 minutes – this is Tarantino’s longest yet – it’s a lean, tight movie without an ounce of fat.

There are also some fun cameos from, among others, Don Johnson, Tom Savini and Franco Nero, while Tarantino himself briefly pops up.

Although there are no quibbles about the performances – perhaps DiCaprio is a little too fresh-faced to be fully convincing – it’s Tarantino regular Samuel L Jackson who stands out as a servile housekeeper, perversely perhaps the most racist of all the characters.

And racism is very much to the fore, with a surfeit of N words that is already causing controversy on the other side of the Atlantic.

While some of Tarantino’s offbeat conversations are uneven – none of them match his classic Royale with cheese dialogue from Pulp Fiction – the good far outweighs any over-indulgence, with action and excitement never more than a few minutes away.